In fewer pages than Amnesty International took to smear Israel in a “report” they rooted in distortion and omission, Robert Spencer had preemptively set the record straight in The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process.
Spencer takes readers through an easy to digest, academic journey that stretches from before the reestablishment of the modern state of Israel, through today. The Palestinian Delusion shines light on the aggressive forces, and the appeasers of such aggressive forces, that have tried to inhibit Israel's success and devastate its people.
Amnesty International has joined in on an already established off-tune chorus in which slandering the Israeli state has become an increasing trend. They released their hit job months after Human Rights Watch released theirs. Neither report mentions that Islamic terrorists regularly target Jewish citizens with violent attacks that have killed more than a thousand people and injured thousands more in just the past couple of decades, or that Israelis have been prompted to tighten security to discourage such attacks.
Spencer provides the context that these sham human rights groups take pains to conceal. He details the harsh reality inflicted on the people of the only democracy of the Middle East and how the single-minded goal to destroy them, also harms Palestinian Arabs. “Mahmoud Abbas and his two sons control a business empire worth four hundred million dollars . . . the leader of Hamas’s political wing, Khaled Mashaal, is also a billionaire.”
Mashaal isn’t the only Hamas terrorist with a fortune, largely skimmed from United States and European aid money, funds that were meant to help improve the lives of the people, but instead, have gone into harming them. In addition to hoarding money to indulge in a lavish lifestyle that they deny their people, Hamas (acronym for their Arabic name, The Islamic Resistance Movement) leaders pay Palestinian Arabs to deliberately get in harm’s way.
Spencer details the Hamas injury reward system they implemented during the 2018 riots, riots that were erroneously reported as simply, protests. Hamas’s goal was to boost global anger toward Israel when the terror group tried to breach Israel’s border: $500 to any Palestinian who would get shot and $3000 to the family of a Palestinian who would get killed. Said “human rights organizations” didn’t condemn that, nor mention it in their “reports.” Spencer also included several stories in which Hamas got unharmed Palestinian Arabs to act injured or to get family members to lie about causes of death to direct erroneous blame at Israel.
Fabrications used to smear Israel have long been enough to turn public opinion against Israel. Spencer eloquently articulates that legend far outruns facts.
He made that point in his chapter that unpacks the truth about the much brought up pre-state battle of Deir Yassin, and how lies then undermined the conquering Arabs’ strategic goals, and lying now accommodates them. For example, more than once, official Palestinian media outlets had repurposed an image of Holocaust victims, whose lifeless bodies were spread on the ground after the Nazis slaughtered them. Palestinian media slightly altered that photo and captioned it to say that Palestinians were the victims of Jewish perpetrators.
It’s beyond cynical to repurpose a photo of murdered Jews to say they were actually the very perpetrators of the victims in the photo. Yet, the global community, courtesy of immoral NGOs trying to pass as human rights groups, and the news outlets and professors who cite them without question, doesn’t condemn nor call out the dishonesty of those seeking to erode the security of the most stable ME nation and the most reliable Western ally.
Despite the Palestinian leaderships’ regularity of lying, incitement, and practice of financially and morally rewarding those who commit terror attacks against Israelis, many leaders in the West, and Israeli leaders, have tried to establish a lasting peace. Whereas Israelis have been willing to give up much, Palestinian Arabs, who’ve only been asked to give up terror and incitement, have refused to even make that concession to get land to form a state they never had before. Spencer addresses several attempts at peace. And he does not leave out the courage, even if at times duplicitous talk and behavior, of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who assured peace with Egypt if Israel were to return land they captured after being attacked.
Alas, Spencer diagnoses the root of the problem: the reason that the Palestinians are not truly committed peace partners is the same reason Islamic terrorists killed Sadat for making peace with Israel. It’s also the reason for incessant strife throughout the Middle East and Africa and periodic carnage in Europe and North America. Though it’s taboo to say nowadays in the West, but is commonly captured on video translations through outlets such as MEMRI, the most fundamental adherents to Islam are committed to a violent jihad against the Jewish state in which nothing but a full annihilation would be acceptable.
Hamas political leader, Fathi Hamad, said, on state sponsored television, that, “ . . . Once the so-called state of Israel is annihilated, the world will heal in terms of economy, security, military, and its relations.” He continued, “ . . . We do not believe in reconciliation or so-called peace with the Zionist enemy. There can be temporary instances of truce, like the treaty of Hudayabiyyah . . .” In the spirit of Hudayabiyyah, Yasser Arafat agreed to the Oslo Accords. Spencer has a chapter regarding that ancient deceptive pact and its modern implications when referenced by political or military jihadists, whose targets of violence and oppression are not restricted to just Jews.
Spencer concludes with suggestions on what must be done for the status quo to improve. For brevity, not all the atrocities that Islamic terror attacks have inflicted on the Israelis, since before its founding, have been included or detailed. But even including one instance is more than what Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International included in their 200 plus page “analysis” and erroneous accusation of apartheid against the state trying to survive and thrive in a most hostile part of the world.
The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process is honest, informative and a relatively quick read for an otherwise long and complicated situation. Those are not points that can honestly be said regarding the Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International sham reports.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is the author of twenty-three books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Regnery Publishing) and The Truth About Muhammad (Regnery Publishing). You can follow him on Twitter @jihadwatchRS
Faith Quintero is the author of Loaded Blessings, a family saga that alternates between Inquisition era Spain and modern-day Israel. It’s among the Federalist’s top books of 2019 list and a Montaigne Medal finalist for the Eric Hoffer awards. The Montaigne Medal is an additional distinction, awarded to "the most thought-provoking books." Follow Faith on Twitter @FaithQuintero7 and Arutz Sheva Opinion at @israelnatopin